by Sarina Bowen
Things were going well for the film, but Bear knew he wasn’t insulated against failure. He was starting to realize that making a good film wasn’t going to be good enough. First, he had to make a great film. And even then, it was possible that nobody would care.
Filmmaking, he was learning, was not a meritocracy. As an athlete, Bear had merely entered competitions, and when his tricks were bigger than the next guy’s, people noticed. There were contests for films, of course, and Bear planned to enter those. But it might not be enough. He had no contacts. He knew nothing of film festivals and distribution.
He worked a ridiculous number of hours each day, because he needed this project to light the way — to make a new path for himself and Hank, and to get Stella the exposure she needed to move up a couple of rungs on the snowboarding food chain.
If they didn’t hit any snags, it was almost in reach. He could feel it.
Bear set the newest files to upload, and pushed back the creaky desk chair. Crap. He’d been sitting here for forty-five minutes. He got up and wandered upstairs into the hotel bar. Scanning the room, he couldn’t find his friends at any of the tables. He checked the bar, seeing only a group of young guys drinking together.
Wait. There was Stella, sitting in the center of the group, a drink in her hands.
Bear crossed the room. When she saw him, she gave him a slightly tipsy wave. That was fast. “Hi,” he greeted her warily. He didn’t like the way the frat boy to her left had his hand on the back of her bar stool. He didn’t like the way the frat boy to her right was sneaking peeks down the front of her shirt.
“Hi yourself,” Stella grinned, lifting a plate off bar. “This is yours. You didn’t come for it.”
“Got distracted,” he said. “Thank you for ordering it.” Taking the plate, he looked around for somewhere to sit. The frat boys didn’t offer him a chair. No surprise there. “Where’d everyone else go?” He stuck a French fry in his mouth. It was stone cold.
“Well, Callie called from the airport, saying her flight was early. So Duku took Hank to meet her at the Palmer Lodge. You know. So the sexual marathon could begin.”
“Now you’re speaking my language,” Right-Hand Frat Boy said.
“I’ll bet,” Stella said, flashing him a slightly patronizing smile.
Her tone made Bear feel a little better. Stella was a party girl, but she wasn’t a pushover. “Duku didn’t come back?” Bear asked. He didn’t really feel like leaving Stella alone with these chumps.
“He said he wanted a change of scenery.”
With Duku, that meant that he hadn’t found the town’s gay bar yet. “Why didn’t you go with him?” It was a great idea, actually. He’d rather she hung out with gay men than any other kind. Forever, probably.
Good luck with that, he chided himself.
“Because I was waiting for you to show up and eat dinner with me,” she said, exasperated.
“Oh.” And now he felt like an ass. “Sorry.”
“But now we’re heading out to two-for-one margarita night,” Left-Hand Frat Boy said. He waved for the bartender. “And you can finish telling me about your movie. I want to see it.”
“When it’s all done, you can buy a ticket,” Bear said with a little more of a growl than was probably necessary.
Stella’s mouth quirked into a little smile just for him. Another good sign. If she thought these two guys were jerkwads, he could probably manage to concentrate on all the work he needed to do tonight.
“You could come with us, you know,” Stella said, sliding into her jacket. “The place isn’t far. Nothing in Ketchum is far.”
“True,” he said. “But I have to set up for our meeting tomorrow morning. Don’t be late.” God, he hated the sound of his own voice. Being in charge? It sucked.
“I’ll bet you could have a margarita and still get that done.” Stella hopped off her barstool. “I seem to remember that margaritas don’t slow you down very much.”
Bear tipped his head to the side, wondering what she expected him to say. Drinking margaritas with Stella was not a good idea. “You have fun. Call me if you need a ride.”
“Okay, Dad,” she said quickly. He couldn’t decide if she looked disappointed, or if the frown he thought he’d seen was just a trick of the light.
As if it mattered. Partying with Stella was not what he’d come to Idaho to do. He’d come here to make a great film, help all of his friends, and maybe even help himself. Fun wasn’t on the menu.
After they left, he slid onto Stella’s abandoned barstool.
“What can I bring you?” the bartender asked, wiping away the rings of condensation — the only evidence that Stella and her pals had been here at all.
“Uh, a Coke,” Bear decided. He would have loved to have a beer. But he needed the caffeine, and he needed to stay sober in case Stella did, in fact, need a ride. Also, soda was cheaper.
If he’d taken the Colorado gig, he would probably be dining on steak and truffles with hedge-fund managers right now, after a day of taking rich people into the back country.
The food sounded good. The company did not. Although, he was alone right now, which made him zero for two.
Lamest man in Idaho, ladies and gentlemen. They could skip the preliminaries and just award him the prize right now.
Eighteen
THREE HOURS LATER, STELLA was in need of a rescue.
It wasn’t a life or death situation. She wasn’t at the bottom of a snowy crevasse, or stranded on a kayak in the middle of the Pacific.
Luckily, Stella’s rescue would not require a helicopter’s retrieval basket or the merchant marine. Instead, she required the services of a friend with a car. But who?
She drummed her fingertips on the table and glanced around the bar. The drink specials had ended an hour ago, and the place was emptying out. Unfortunately, the two lunks Stella had accompanied to this dark-paneled place didn’t seem in a hurry to leave.
She was hemmed in on two sides, and they were shitfaced. The guy on her left was Tom, and the one on her right had been called “Mash” by his friend all night. Stella had not been interested enough to ask why. All they’d done these past few hours was drink and make risque jokes. They’d been joined briefly by another of their friends, but that guy was across the room, his tongue tangled with a woman wearing leather pants.
Accompanying them to the bar had been a big mistake. Stella had done it because she’d been feeling lonely. And when the night was young, it was easy to be optimistic. The bar they’d brought her to might have been fabulous and fun. Or she might have met someone fabulous and fun.
That hadn’t happened. But really, when did it ever?
The other reason Stella had agreed to accompany two irritating dudes was that Bear had been watching. Now she was paying for thirty seconds of hopefully (but probably not) making him jealous with four hours of trying to laugh at jokes which only got worse after each margarita.
She did not have a car. They were too drunk to drive.
This problem was not going to fix itself.
“Excuse me,” she said, nudging the one who was called Mash. “I need to go to the ladies’ room.”
He tipped his head back drunkenly. “I got a better idea. Our hotel is just next door. Come on over, and you can use ours.”
Stella held in her sigh. “It’s an emergency, big guy. Move your chair.”
Instead? He tipped it back against the wall. Not even Tinkerbell could fit through the space he’d made. He grinned — probably going for catty, but succeeding only in looking sloppy.
Ugh. Stella turned the other direction. “Excuse me. Bathroom emergency.”
Tom hitched his chair a couple of inches, and she crammed her body between his big frame and the wall. “Don’t be a stranger,” he slurred as she walked quickly across the old wide-plank floors.
Instead of heading for the ladies’ room, Stella stopped at the bar. “Could you call me a cab?” she asked when she had the bartender’s attentio
n.
He winced. “I just called one for them,” he pointed at the couple sucking face beside the pool table. “And was told it would be forty minutes. But when it comes, I could ask them to share with you.”
Stella gave the couple another glance, and tried to picture herself sharing a seat with two slobbering Dobermans. “I’ll try to come up with a better plan,” she said. “But maybe that can be my backup.”
“Let me know, okay? Looks like you need to pull the ripcord with Itchy and Scratchy over there.”
“Should have pulled it hours ago,” Stella admitted, and the man laughed.
She went into the ladies’ room, which was small and a bit smelly. Ugh again. She pulled out her phone and scrolled to Bear’s number, hitting the “call” button.
He answered on the first ring. “Hi, Stella. Where are you?”
“Hiding in the bathroom of a bar called The Cactus. I’m sorry to ask…”
“You need a lift?”
“Yeah. There aren’t any taxis. Sorry.”
He sighed. “I’ll be there in ten.”
“Thanks.” She pocketed her phone and tried to use the facilities without touching anything. Then she washed her hands with ice-cold water — the only sort provided — and wiped them on her jeans.
She took out her phone one more time, and dialed Anya back in Vermont.
“You know it’s two in the morning, right?” her friend answered. “Are you having an emergency?”
Stella winced. “I’m sorry. I forgot about the time difference.”
“You know it’s a weeknight, right? Even at midnight I was already asleep. At least I think it’s a weeknight. Fuck.”
“I’m sorry, Anya. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Well I’m up now,” her friend protested. “What did you call to tell me? It must be something about Bear. You don’t call to shoot the breeze about snowboarding at this hour.”
“Ugh. Who knew I was so predictable?”
“I did, little lady. Now what did he do?”
Stella sighed. “Not a thing, of course. Except tonight I went out drinking with a couple of guys who think they’ve been cast in a remake of Animal House, and I just had to call Bear to come and rescue me.”
“I know how much you enjoy being rescued.”
“And by him! Shoot me.”
Anya giggled. “I can’t shoot you until you give me back the shoes you borrowed at New Year’s.”
“Sure you can. I’ll write them into my will.”
“So where are you right now?”
“In a gross bathroom, killing a few minutes so I don’t have to sit with Thing One and Thing Two. This won’t be good for the hero complex Bear has developed. He’s become such a stressy grumpmonster.”
“Wow, sorry. Isn’t the movie going well?”
“I think it’s going great. But he’s turned into a broody artist, or something. Like it’s all on him to make the Movie of the Decade, change Hank’s outlook on life, relaunch his own career, and improve me, too.”
Stella got the sense that featuring her in the film was Bear’s way of apologizing for their… fling. Sexcapade. Whatever. And that only made her feel like an idiot. If Bear didn’t want her, she wished they could just move on already. It was hard to do that when Bear wore “I’m sorry” in his eyes all the time.
“Bummer, Stella. That doesn’t sound fun.”
“He’s okay,” Stella said. “It’s not that bad.”
“You always do that.”
“What?”
“You complain that he’s bossing you around, or that he isn’t treating you well. But if anyone else says a word against him, you defend him. You’re a textbook case of a girl in love.”
Stella pinched her eyes shut. “I’m not in love with him. Why did I call you again?”
“You told me you were.”
“When?”
“In ninth grade. Duh.”
“Anya! That hardly counts.”
“If we’re still talking about him more than ten years later, I’m pretty sure it does. And it kind of explains why you’ve never had a real relationship.”
“Sure I have.”
But that was a lie so bald that Anya didn’t even bother to call her on it. The longest Stella had ever been with one guy was two months. And Anya had already disqualified that one because they’d discovered later that the two weeks during which he had not returned Stella’s calls were because he was in jail.
Anya yawned loudly into the phone. “Sort it out, sweetie. For your own sanity.”
“Are you going to be able to get back to sleep?”
“Yup. Take care of yourself. Later, gator.”
“Later.”
Stella left the icky bathroom, realizing she’d made a tactical error. Her coat was still draped over the back of her chair. That maneuver had made her bathroom emergency more believable, but required another interaction with the drunks she’d arrived with.
With a sigh, she approached their table with the friendliest smile she could muster. “Well, boys, I’m out of here. Thanks for the drink. You have fun tonight.” She reached over Mash for her jacket. That seemed simpler than asking the asshole to move.
It was a miscalculation.
Mash grabbed her forearm as she leaned. Stella landed belly-first across his lap. “What have we here?” he crowed above her.
“Awesome,” Tom chuckled. “Somebody needs a spanking.” Stella’s face flushed red from humiliation and anger. She strained to push up and off of Mash, but he put one heavy forearm across her shoulder blades. And Tom — that jerk — grabbed both her hands. “Don’t leave yet, sweetheart. The night is still young.”
“You ass,” Stella growled. “Let me up.”
“But that’s not fun,” Mash teased. He patted her bottom, and Stella’s blood pressure went up another few degrees.
How do I get myself in these jams? She tucked her chin, curled her abs and bit Mash in the thigh.
“Arrrhg!” he yelped as the weight of his arm disappeared from her upper back.
But Tom still had her hands. He was probably stronger than Stella, but his reflexes would be slowed by bargain margaritas. And Stella had been holding her own against the boys all her life. She jerked her arms closer together, grabbing one of Tom’s wrists in her hand. All she needed now was his other one…
Behind her there was a sudden movement. Mash’s chair seemed to tip back suddenly, and there was a clunk which might or might not have been the sound of his skull colliding with the wood-paneled wall.
Thank you, bartender, Stella privately cheered.
But it was a more familiar voice that rasped, “I will fucking kill you.”
Even as Stella turned her head to see him, Bear yanked her by her underarms into a standing position. He set her aside, then lifted Mash to his feet by the collar of his shirt. “You stupid little punk,” he growled into Mash’s face. Bear shook Mash, and the drunk’s jaw flopped helplessly against the onslaught. “That’s the kind of man you are? To get a girl to touch you, you have to trap her so she’s helpless on your lap?”
“Who are you calling a helpless girl?” Stella couldn’t stop herself from asking. At the same time, she rubbed her wrists where Tom had squeezed them.
“Let him go,” the bartender said, coming to stand behind Stella. “I know he deserves a good beating, but the law won’t see it that way.”
Oh, great. Stella’s mind churned with worry. Not only had she just humiliated herself in front of Bear, but if he didn’t chill out, he could end up in the back of a police cruiser. “Let’s just go,” she said quietly, putting one hand on Bear’s back.
But the veins were standing out on his neck, and Stella endured a long, tense moment when she had no idea which way this would go. Bear let go of Mash suddenly, and the guy toppled backward, crashing into the wall and bouncing off his chair before ending up on the floor.
“Whoops!” the bartender said cheerfully. “All right. Everybody head out now.”
“Come on,” Stella whispered to Bear, who was still red-faced and breathing hard. She grabbed his hand and gave it a tug.
Bear removed his hand from Stella’s, turned his back on her and stalked toward the door.
Oh, boy. It was not going to be a fun little car ride back to the hotel.
The bartender reached past Mash — who was still seated on the floor and rubbing the back of his head — to fetch Stella’s jacket.
“Thanks,” she said.
“No problem. Glad to see you don’t need a ride home anymore.”
“Right. Thanks.” A taxi sounded pretty good right now, actually. Stella slipped her coat on while she walked out of the bar. Just outside, she found the big ugly van that Bear had rented for hauling people and equipment around Idaho.
She opened the passenger door, climbed in and shut it behind her. Bear gripped the steering wheel as if he might break it off. “Um, thank you for picking me up.”
Without a word, he pulled away from the curb. They drove in silence for a couple of minutes. Stella wasn’t a fan of this cold act Bear was trying out, but she knew better than to poke the angry beast. The angry… Bear. This silly little analogy caused an inappropriate giggle to bubble from her throat before she could choke it back.
“I don’t see what’s so funny,” Bear growled.
But this was one of those better-laugh-or-else-you’ll-cry situations. She’d had to ask Bear, of all people, for a rescue. And then he’d walked in to see her splayed across the lap of one of those idiots, her ass in the air, flailing like Olive Oyl in a Popeye cartoon.
It didn’t get much more ridiculous than that. Her stomach began to shake.
Abruptly, the van pulled over. “Nothing that happened in there is fucking funny,” Bear hissed. “I’m not a fan of finding you overpowered by a couple of tools.”
Stella felt her temper flare. It was high school all over again — with Bear trying to play protector, when she really only wanted his love. “You can’t be serious. I wasn’t in any real danger of being hurt.” Just embarrassed.
His jaw got even tighter. “How do you figure? I know you’re strong, but it was two against one—”
